Oddball Airgun .50?

[JonnyReb]

 Veral
 I have an older .50 air rifle that because of its design, is limited to fairly low velocities using its most accurate projectile, the fairly lightweight .495 roundball. Is it possible to build a mold with a hollow base resulting in a much lighter projectile? Although i realize this may result in lower long range ftlbs, i'm interested in close range increased penatration or a slightly flattened trajectory. Any thoughts on this? Thanks!  Jeff

[shakey]

Any way to make a sabot work?

[Veral]

  Sorry, but hollow base bullets are out for me.   They can be made, but to make one lighter than a round ball will take some doing.    I do make what I call a BB  and the letters stand for ball bullet.  It has a roundball nose, which can be and is best made with flat nose, and a bullet type base, with lube groove.  However it is heavier than a round ball.  Works great in roundball muzzloaders as it stabillizes easy like a round ball but carries more weight.  And I've made them for air guns.

[JonnyReb]

 Shakey, Good question and yes i've tried them. My biggest issue with all the sabots i've tried is that due to the rifles design(older .50 Dragonslayer), they all are slightly oversized and hard to breech load. I'm still open to finding a good one for use in this rifle. At least i'm able to use those that didn't work in my muzzleloaders.

  Veral, thanks much for the reply. I'd read hollow base molds were far and few inbetween and difficult to produce so i kinda expected your reply. I've tried some off the "ball" style slugs and they do shoot well, as mentioned they are very short and seem to ride on only two bearing surfaces, still, the extra weight leaves me shooting at about 575fps as opposed to the 180ish grained roundballs which attain 650fps or so. I have been surprised at the amount of penatration even such slow rounds produce.

  Many thanks for being available to us here on the forum.  Jeff

[shakey]

MMP makes an undersized 50 cal. sabot.


Give them a call.


http://www.mmpsabots.com/index.html

[JonnyReb]

 Hey thanks Shakey, I'll give then a call to see which might be the undersized model and i'll try them out. The load(180gr) matches my rb's but undoubtably gives a better gas seal. I would LOVE to find a sabot that works. Thanks much!  Jeff

[Veral]

  Yes it is possible but not affordably with the tooling which I use to make molds.  Also, if you find someone who will, whcih is doubtful, casting hollow base bullet which is lighter than a roundball is going to be VERY difficult to control quality, because of the very thin skirts required.  Your project is one where swaging is needed.

[mcwoodduck]

To up velocity what about shooting a lighter material than lead.
An all copper ball or even a steel ball berring  That is just the size of the lands or one that has a plastic dip that is the depth of the grooves? 

[JonnyReb]

To up velocity what about shooting a lighter material than lead.
An all copper ball or even a steel ball berring  That is just the size of the lands or one that has a plastic dip that is the depth of the grooves?

  Certainly it would work given the right design. Foot lbs wouldn't change but theres just something desireable about going faster. I believe any .495 rb soft enough to engrave the rifling without too much friction would work. Plastic sabots are still probably the easiest solution however, i just need to get some ordered in the right diameter and start testing. One unique "bb" that would combine both your ideas and would probably work great, would be a steel ball bearing about .485 with a thin plastic jacket adding .010 to equal .495. Would work great i think.   J

[mcwoodduck]

To up velocity what about shooting a lighter material than lead.
An all copper ball or even a steel ball berring  That is just the size of the lands or one that has a plastic dip that is the depth of the grooves?

  Certainly it would work given the right design. Foot lbs wouldn't change but theres just something desireable about going faster. I believe any .495 rb soft enough to engrave the rifling without too much friction would work. Plastic sabots are still probably the easiest solution however, i just need to get some ordered in the right diameter and start testing. One unique "bb" that would combine both your ideas and would probably work great, would be a steel ball bearing about .485 with a thin plastic jacket adding .010 to equal .495. Would work great i think.   J

Since the 490 round balls are about 180 grains, how small are you able to go with a sabot?    A 451 Round ball is about 123 grains   
A conical bullet like a 357 is going to be 125 to 180 grains.  And a sabot to 452 is going to have bullets in the 185 to 300 grains. 
 

[darkgael]

I have done what you have asked about in the OP, albeit for .45 cal ball. I have a Corbin Silver press and  dies that allow me to swage up to .458". I coat a .490 LRB with Imperial die wax and then run them into the swage die using a base punch that swages a cupped base. All thatnI would need to do for a hollow base is buy a punch for that from Corbin.
The issue for many folk is the cost of setting up. Swage presses and dies are expensive.
Pete

[JonnyReb]

 Its a good point MC, there really are no huge advantages to sabots as even the average .44 is running 200-240gr, Some of the custom sabots online may allow a .40 cal but even then, how much weight reduction are you really getting and will it really equate to much..the airgun is a limited platform and you'd have to be literally reducing projectile weight by half to see big velocity jumps. My hope with the OP was for a mold that would hollow out a projectile to do just that. I now see why the shuttlecock pellet design is so ingenious, they figured out right from the beginning that a limited powerplant needed a "light for caliber" projectile. I appreciate you jumping in on this topic with your thoughts on it.

 Pete i felt sure someone with more time and money than me had already figured this out and i see it was you.  . While i won't go to that extent myself, i have to ask, what did you see come from your projectiles results wise and what was the application?   J

[mcwoodduck]

Do you have a laith?
Get a .495 Bar and cut your own pellet shape with a skirt and a pellet about 80 to 100 grains and then have a mold made for it and pour your own. 
Or get a hollow point design mold and drop a small steel ball bearing or a 36 caliber ball in it and let it settle to the bottom and then fill the rest with sealing wax.  You know the type that was used to seal letters with a signet ring.  I have seen bars of it pretty cheap and it should get you to lighter weight nad the sealing wax will not just melt in the sun or your pocket like candle wax would and will not clog up your rifling. 

[JonnyReb]

Do you have a laith?
Get a .495 Bar and cut your own pellet shape with a skirt and a pellet about 80 to 100 grains and then have a mold made for it and pour your own. 
Or get a hollow point design mold and drop a small steel ball bearing or a 36 caliber ball in it and let it settle to the bottom and then fill the rest with sealing wax.  You know the type that was used to seal letters with a signet ring.  I have seen bars of it pretty cheap and it should get you to lighter weight nad the sealing wax will not just melt in the sun or your pocket like candle wax would and will not clog up your rifling.

  Hey thats a pretty darned good idea,! i don't have a lathe but might do some experimenting with my molds to see how i could do just what your saying. I appreciate the brainstorming, now i just gotta quit messing with muzzleloaders for awhile and get back to my airguns. Probably will be summer before i get around to it but if anything happens to work well i'll sure post about it. Thanks Mcwoodduck!  J

[darkgael]

Pete i felt sure someone with more time and money than me had already figured this out and i see it was you.  . While i won't go to that extent myself, i have to ask, what did you see come from your projectiles results wise and what was the application?   J

First....I had the wrong diameter in my last post. .490 is wrong.
I take .452" LSWCs that I cast for my 1911 and swage them up to .458 and swage in a hollow base.
The result is way less expense for the ammo and more than acceptable accuracy.
I can also take .45 cal LRBs and swage then into slugs but they dont shoot as well.
Pete

[Veral]

  I've made some bullets for these guns and there is in fact a post on this forum of a deer killed with one in the fall of 2012 and I believe a photo of his bullet.

  Send me a slug from the gun so I can give you an exact fit and I'll make you what I call a Ball Bullet.
(BB)  It will have a substantial flat on the nose and two drive bands with a fairly deep waist, all of which keeps the weight about like  a round ball and the accuracy top notch. 

I can make them in about any caliber, up to 8 bore, for use with black powder or smokeless or air power.  So if you happen to get a deal on Lewis and Clarks famous rifle I can make one for that..